Kimi Räikkönen puts pressure on Lotus

“Other victories” at all costs. Second in the Drivers' Championship before the start of the first European Grand Prix of the season, Kimi Räikkönen explains what he needs if he and his Lotus team want to fight until the end of the year for both world crowns. “We are in a better position than last year at the same time”, notes the Finn. “But the season is long and it is too early to say if we will be able to fight for the title until the end. It will be hard to catch Sebastian (Hag, Editor’s note) if he continues to obtain good results. So we have to start taking points from him. »

To do this, the 2007 world champion believes that his team must redouble its efforts. “To catch up with the leaders, we have to work twice as hard as them”, believes Iceman, who also emphasizes the importance of improving on Saturday. “It's no secret we need to have a faster car in qualifying. It's so tight up front that we really need to start from the first two rows to have a chance of fighting for victory in each race. It's good to start the European season in our position because that's when you see the teams start to bring a lot of new things to the cars. It's still early, but having garnered a lot of points since the start of the year is obviously much more favorable than the opposite. We must continue this momentum. Even if we have a bad weekend, we have to keep ourselves as high as possible. This is how we can fight until the end of the season”, concludes Kimi Räikkönen. There Formula 1 returns to Europe next weekend, for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.